Only God Knows When It's Your Time to Go

Left wing proposals for an independent panel to make allocation choices for the sick and elderly generally find condemnation among conservatives. Sarah Palin's reference to such bodies as "death panels" sharpened the debate and placed left wingers on the defensive. Some writers, even on the conservative side, however, have questioned the logic of pumping costly resources into patients during the last year of life. They cite the statistic that 30% of health care costs go to people in their last several months of living.

Here's the problem. No one knows whether or not the sick eighty year old is on their last legs, or if they have several good years in them. Obama Administration health care advisors callously argue that younger people deserve more health care because they have potentially more to contribute. This ignores the fact that the elderly paid into insurance and/or Medicare their entire lives. Don't forget the servicemen who sacrificed for their country either. Doctors must proceed under the assumption that the patient can make a reasonable recovery, or they risk killing a person well before their time.

Another problem lies in the patient. Let's say the eighty year old is a distinguished senator compared to a former teacher or factory worker, or any common person. I seriously doubt that the "independent panel" that Obama wants to make decisions will look at a senator, an actor, or another famous individual in the same way as retired railroad worker Joe Smith of Keyser, West Virginia. One will get the care, the other gets the shaft.

We are a people conditioned to be optimists because sometimes heroic and expensive measures do give us a few more years with Grandma. You cannot put a price tag on a life that a person wants to live, or the love their families have for them. Their productivity over a lifetime paid into insurance or Medicare entitles them to care no matter what callous, uncaring left wing socialists think is best.